


An Affair

by too_much_in_the_sun



Category: BioShock 1 & 2 (Video Games)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-01
Updated: 2011-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:34:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23418328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/too_much_in_the_sun/pseuds/too_much_in_the_sun
Summary: Frank Fontaine meets Sander Cohen.
Kudos: 2





	An Affair

**Author's Note:**

> Posted to AO3, 31 March 2020.
> 
> This was going to be a fic where Frank Fontaine seduces Sander Cohen, but as it turned out I wrote a few hundred words of preamble and never got around to the seduction part. Sorry.
> 
> Context clues tell me this was written as a partial fill for the Bioshock Livejournal kink meme in March 2011. So if you prompted something like this, here you go. If you didn't, here's the text of the original prompt, and a link to it:
> 
> And while I'm here... FONTAINE/COHEN :  
> Fontaine wooing him just to piss Ryan off. Kink is Cohen actually falling for the act, any extras are up to anon ♥  
> (http://community.livejournal.com/biokink/705.html?thread=124865#t124865)

Frank Fontaine probably has too much time on his hands. His sleeper agent is somewhere in the Fontaine Futuristics labs, probably shooting dummies or prisoners with a gun too big for his kid-size hands. Someone's negotiating at the docks in New York on his behalf, arranging for a load of whisky and Bibles (of all things, Bibles!) to be snuck in by bathysphere. In Arcadia someone's looking at a poster and wondering WHO IS ATLAS; in Fontaine's Home For the Poor someone's whispering to someone else about how Ryan doesn't give a fuck, but Fontaine actually seems to give a damn. All over Rapture people are dancing to his tune, but right now he doesn't have to personally manage the waltz.

Which means he's here, getting started on grand plan number whatever the hell it is by now, one of his many plans to simply fuck with Andrew Ryan, because Ryan's a goddamn control freak, and it amuses Fontaine to watch him freak out, especially knowing that in a couple years, Ryan will be one of many corpses littering the streets of the city he built. This city's gonna be his not too long from now. All he has to do is wait.

Unfortunately, he didn't account for the fact that some of that waiting would be more tiresome than the rest.

The heroine of the film he's pretending to watch collapses onto her bed, clutching a rose, and the credits start to roll. Thank God. He's seen longer movies -- the girl he was going with made him see Gone With The Wind when he was in high school, and that was an exercise in patience. This was only an hour long, a regular short film, but goddamn if it didn't feel three times as long.

He claps politely for a minute or two, then gets up, plan of action already running through his head. He's had this part planned since he came up with the idea.

The crowd is sparse for a premiere showing (because Cohen's films are fucking terrible, honestly), and Fontaine slips past them with ease. The few people here are suckup artists and rich idiots, and while the artists watch him with interest before ducking their eyes, the rich idiots sneer at him; even though he's wearing a nice suit, they look at him like he's nothing but a street kid. 

He pays them no mind as he makes his way toward his target. They don't matter to him; the artists are easily manipulable, and he recognizes a few of them as tenants current and former in the Home, and the millionaires are nothing but ghosts already.

Sander Cohen is standing with his hands folded neatly behind his back, listening patiently as some old matron gushes to him about the film. He's wearing a modest expression, but around his eyes his true feeling is betrayed: he fucking loves it, he's lapping it up. His tuxedo doesn't quite fit, and there's a trace of plaster on the lapel, but he carries himself like a Rockefeller.

"Thank you, madame," Cohen says, and bows to kiss the old broad's hand. She giggles. 

The broad scurries away, and Fontaine makes his move, stepping forward and greeting Cohen with a friendly wave. "Nice film, Cohen. I like that lead actress. Great gams. Where'd you find her?"

"I spotted her at an exhibition of my sculptures," Cohen purrs, glancing Fontaine over with an appreciative eye. "She had such presence I cast her on the spot." He tilts his head back in an expression of a critic regarding an artwork. "I don't believe we've met before, Mister...?"

"Fontaine."

"Ah, Fontaine," says Cohen as he shakes Fontaine's hand -- his hand is dry and warm, not cold and clammy like he was expecting, and his grip is firm, not limp-fishy like the other 'artists' Fontaine's met down here. "I've heard much about you. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"I hope you ain't heard nothing bad, Mister Cohen," Fontaine says, words slipping from his lips with ease, like he'd practiced them. "I am an honorable businessman."

"Of course," Cohen says, folding his hands in front of himself. "Andrew has expressed his admiration of your business skills to me. He's not fond of your methods, but I find them -- innovative, Mister Fontaine."

Methods hell. He's a cheat and a liar and a con man, and goddamned proud of it. 

Fontaine allows himself a small smile, searching for a way to continue the conversation -- Cohen is a social butterfly, and if Fontaine doesn't keep him busy and interested, he'll flit away to chat with someone more willing to flatter him, and Fontaine will probably have to sit through another of his fucking movies to get another opportunity to get this close to him.

"Andrew?" he says, even as he curses himself for just parroting Cohen back at himself. Cohen's probably losing interest already.

"Ryan," says the artist with a nod. 

"I thought so," Fontaine says. He glances around, exaggerating it so that Cohen's sure to pick up on it. The small crowd has already departed, save for a skinny young man in a loud suit lurking in the corner, leaving him and Cohen standing here alone.

"Say, you want to go for a drink somewhere?" he offers. "I got a business proposition you might be interested in."

Loud-suit sighs dramatically and walks out, but Cohen's eyes are glued to Fontaine. "I'd be delighted." He unfolds his hands, strokes his chin pensively. "There's a cocktail lounge downstairs."

Fontaine knows that. He scouted the joint last week, and it's too open for his purposes. Also, it's on Cohen's turf.

"That dive? Nah," he says casually. "I know a place downtown that's just perfect."

"Lead the way, Mister Fontaine," Cohen says. "I look forward to negotiating with you."


End file.
